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Enilria - Low Density A321 XLRs Have Another Issue
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New, extremely low density seating on American and United A321 XLRs has a newly discovered operational risk. In a forum post, it was revealed that Iberia is already having to load a container filled with ballast, likely sand, with some regularity on its transatlantic A321 XLRs. It is particularly an issue when coach is lightly filled. There have even been instances where passengers have been downgraded from Business Class to Coach purely due to weight issues on light flights.
The ballast container is placed at the absolute rear of the aircraft. That is near the Rear Center Fuel Tank (RCT). You would think having all that fuel and a lot of ballast and extremely low density seating at the front of the plane would make the aircraft very tail heavy, but the reverse is actually true. And it’s even more true for the lighter American and United configurations.
The problem is not on takeoff, the problem is that the RCT drains first and can leave the aircraft very nose heavy, particularly if coach is lightly filled. Those new J class seats are much heavier than coach seats, contributing to the issue. The end result can be a dangerous balance condition for landing.
United was well aware of this risk and took out even more seats to add what seemed like an incredibly generous and oddball rear snack bar.
You would expect a free snack bar to be in the premium cabin, but United placed it at the extreme back to transfer heavy galley weight to the very back of the plane to help the balance problem, sacrificing even more seats on an already lightly configured plane.
How much of a problem is this going to be?If it is already happening at Iberia, with many more seats, it is likely to be a bigger issue at American and United. If the XLRs end up on routes with light coach loads to Europe, they will be loading ballast. The irony of that is that effectively they don’t save any money by not selling nearly every coach seat because the fuel cost of flying sand is not any different than a person.
I would think this will push fares down on off-peak flights with the XLR, as revenue management is asked to fill seats more than keep yield up…and fly a lot of sand around.
Fortunately, this is probably not a range impact because the ballast shouldn’t be needed on a full flight…they hope.
New, extremely low density seating on American and United A321 XLRs has a newly discovered operational risk. In a forum post, it was revealed that Iberia is already having to load a container filled with ballast, likely sand, with some regularity on its transatlantic A321 XLRs. It is particularly an issue when coach is lightly filled. There have even been instances where passengers have been downgraded from Business Class to Coach purely due to weight issues on light flights.
The ballast container is placed at the absolute rear of the aircraft. That is near the Rear Center Fuel Tank (RCT). You would think having all that fuel and a lot of ballast and extremely low density seating at the front of the plane would make the aircraft very tail heavy, but the reverse is actually true. And it’s even more true for the lighter American and United configurations.
The problem is not on takeoff, the problem is that the RCT drains first and can leave the aircraft very nose heavy, particularly if coach is lightly filled. Those new J class seats are much heavier than coach seats, contributing to the issue. The end result can be a dangerous balance condition for landing.
United was well aware of this risk and took out even more seats to add what seemed like an incredibly generous and oddball rear snack bar.
You would expect a free snack bar to be in the premium cabin, but United placed it at the extreme back to transfer heavy galley weight to the very back of the plane to help the balance problem, sacrificing even more seats on an already lightly configured plane.
How much of a problem is this going to be?If it is already happening at Iberia, with many more seats, it is likely to be a bigger issue at American and United. If the XLRs end up on routes with light coach loads to Europe, they will be loading ballast. The irony of that is that effectively they don’t save any money by not selling nearly every coach seat because the fuel cost of flying sand is not any different than a person.
I would think this will push fares down on off-peak flights with the XLR, as revenue management is asked to fill seats more than keep yield up…and fly a lot of sand around.
Fortunately, this is probably not a range impact because the ballast shouldn’t be needed on a full flight…they hope.
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